Fade up on the interior of Primetime's Most Depressing Hospital, Calhoun "Chicago Hopeless" Memorial, in which Ronette's empty bed is soon to be filled with a ranting, screaming Ronette being secured to said bed by hospital attendants. As if entirely consumed by the stage direction "you're finally awake…and you're ACTING!" Ronette flails her arms wildly and screams every available variant of "No!" and "Ah!" and "Woe be it to my non-range-displaying, virtually-Sylvia-Horne-esque post-series career opportunities!" until we pan across the room to spot a nurse preparing an injection of some kind. Cooper runs into the room in a "what, me shot?" hurry, followed by Albert, and we learn from an already present Truman that "Ronette pulled out her IV. They just gave her a sedative." Albert stops for a cautious look at Ronette's IV bag and, perhaps as concerned as I am that the hospital's idea of proper post-traumatic bloodstream additive looks less like, um, whatever is usually found in an IV bag and more like Blueberry Bash Kool-Aid, instantly forms the belief that it "looks like dye." Over by the bed, Cooper unearths a pair of tweezers and holds Ronette's left hand. He suggests as gently as possible that she "breathe now, honey," moving the tweezers toward her still-swollen ring finger and inserting them under the nail ever so slightly. Rather than forcing us to relive the spectacle of these tweezers probing so deeply under a girl's fingernail that they manage to pluck a nose hair or two before reemerging into the light (see the pilot for more on this wrenching and invasive medical procedure), we cut instead to a slow-motion shot of Ronette screaming, as a magazine cut-out letter "B" is oh-so-faux-artsily superimposed over the proceedings. Oooh, artsy indeed. All hail Lesli Linka Glatter, the director of this week's episode, for harping the Lynch style so self-consciously that she somehow tore into the time-space continuum in making sure that the show could actually rip its own self off. Farewell, Lesli Linka Glatter. We barely -- or, really, not at all -- knew ye.
Seconds later, Cooper looks at the B through Albert's microscope and states with all certainty, "He's been here." Albert observes that Ronette has been under twenty-four-hour surveillance since entering the hospital, but Cooper is positive that this mysterious "he" both planted the letter and tainted Ronette's IV with the Blueberry Bash. I'm sayin', Coop, if you're really that suspicious of the Kool-Aid guy's participation in this caper, the surefire way to see if he's been around your neighborhood is to closely examine the walls of Ronette's hospital room. If any of them has been broken through entirely and the remaining area around the rubble is vaguely shaped like the bulbous side of a giant pitcher, it's a fair bet you've got your man. Not to mention the testimony from other hospital patients and personnel that they were rocked awake by a jubilant cry of "Oh, yeah!" as the wall came tumbling down. I'd probably need a sedative after the trauma of witnessing that, too. Sigh. Meanwhile, back at the observation deck overlooking the vistas of Linear Recapping National Park (Sorry, kids. Park's closed), Truman suggests that perhaps Ronette saw the man who assaulted her, and Albert loses just a shade of his trademark luster with the comeback, "Maybe she heard a Sousa march and got up to look for her baton." Yeah, um, maybe? Sensing the increasing "chirp, chirp" silence that follows Albert's every attempt at humor, Cooper quickly changes the subject to "plot retreading for the impatient casual viewer," alerting the men, "It's time I've mentioned something." And so, always a man of his word, Cooper mentions something: "I'm not sure, but I believe I was visited by a giant. Twice. In my room." Truman strives valiantly to appear understanding, bearing in mind that, long as this show had been around when this episode initially aired, Cooper had really only been in Twin Peaks for, what, nine hours or so? Albert, conversely, pauses a moment, arms folded, before asking the question on the minds of the literally tens of fans hanging on every word the show had to offer at this point in its run: "Any relation to the dwarf?"
Donna walks toward a house we identify as Harold Smith's, but before she has a chance to knock, he opens the door from the inside and comments first, "You're wearing a different sweater than yesterday. The color is better on you." Before the too-earnest Donna has a chance to narrow her eyes and hurl a snarky comment of the "Thanks endlessly, Dolce to my Gabbana, Gianni to my Donatella, Maxx to my TJ. And incidentally, those sure are some de rigueur suspenders, which are a successful fashion accessory mostly in their ability to bring out the highlights in your Flock of Seagulls hair" variety, Harold apologizes for forgetting his manners and invites her in. She walks through the door and into the house, and while Donna takes in the vast horticultural array of plants and flowers which take up much of the room, I muse for a moment that all Harold needs to add to his clothes and his cartoonishly raspy voice is a misbegotten handful of hair gel and he will become the living earthbound manifestation of Ed Grimley deciding to take a small place in the country. I must say. He offers her some lemonade, and then continues on with the manifold culinary delights available to the visitor of the Grimley house: "I also have some Saltines and some apple butter." Ah, yes. Apple butter. The normative cuisine of vegans, aged grandmothers, and socially bereft shut-ins everywhere. Donna shoots back a "For someone who counts strained carrots at sixteen months as among my last full meals, you're gonna have to do a whole lot better than apple butter to break my steely, skeletal resolve" glance and attaches an impartial "no thanks." They sit miles away from each other on a couch. Endless silence. Maybe Harold is allowing his creeping disappointment that the knock on the door wasn't the visit from Pat Sajak he simply KNOWS must be right around the corner (I must say) to finally sink in. Poor Ed. Donna breaks said silence by telling Ed that the room is very warm, and he quickly turns the conversation to Laura. Ed elaborates: "Laura wanted me to get in touch with you if anything ever happened to her." Ed says that she knew Laura since she began Meals on Wheels, and that he was "her best customer." Meaning? More shut in than the guy? Less afraid to question the supernatural powers of a plate of creamed corn when you know that you're choosing between what they bring you versus apple butter for every meal? Donna volleys that Ed doesn't "seem much like a shut-in." He tells her that he "can't" go outside. Seems pretty much like a shut-in to me, then. Textbook definition, in fact. In the Handbook of Circus Performers and Other Various and Sundry Societal Refugees, I'd pretty much ascribe "Figure 1-1" status to Mr. Shut-In himself. I must say. Donna wants to know why she knew nothing about Ed from Laura, and Ed posits that "Laura liked to think of [him] as a mystery in her life." But he needs to employ outside help now, because Ed was a horticulturist before he lost his yen for leaving the house (I can only imagine how he would react if suddenly victimized by that "Kool-Aid attacker" plague that seems to be reaching epidemic proportions around town these days), and he wants Donna to place a flower from his home on Laura's grave. And so he walks through the back of his house to an outdoor (hey, wait a sec) greenhouse to fetch the flower in question. Alone in the room, Donna spots a piece of paper sticking out from beneath a number of (unbelievably heavy?) books on a low bookshelf. She slinks (as much as one can slink when the internal organs of her frame slam audibly into each other with each movement she makes) over and attempts to remove the paper, but finds herself unable to gasp and grunt and whisper, "Can't. Move. Paper. Just. So. Hungry." Clearly, Donna has thought this plan through miraculously well, as the greenhouse that contains Ed stands less than ten feet away from her and is, like most greenhouses, constructed entirely of that wall building material called "clear." And so he spots her skulking, and returns quickly to the room with a flower of his choosing, which he describes as a "hybrid." He then stares at her rather extravagantly and I simply cannot believe this scene is going to go on for one more second. Flowers, apple butter, shut-ins. Oh, my.
He tells her, "You're every bit as lovely as Laura said you were." Awwwww. Depending on how lovely Laura said she was, of course:
Laura: Hey, Ed, my friend Donna is a skinny freak. And not a lovely one, at that.
Ed: That's so mean. I'm going to tell her that if I ever meet her.
Laura: Try and put it in the nicest possible way.
Ed: I've got nothing to do but work on it. Say, would you like some more apple butter, doomed damsel of my life and misguided focal point of my every intention?
Laura: I thought you'd never ask.
Ed: I like you more than her already.
How are we to know that it didn't transpire that way? Not so "awwwww" anymore, I'm sayin'. We'll never know. Donna leaves. "I'll be back." Ed stares. "I'll be here." Djb yawns. "I'll be sleeping." I must say.
Back at the police station, Cooper and Truman stand in front of a blackboard in the conference room, regarding the police sketch of BOB with the names "Mrs. Palmer, Maddy, Ronette, and Cooper" written in chalk on each side of the board around the picture. On the top of the blackboard are written "R, B, T," the letters pulled from underneath the fingernails of Theresa Banks, Laura, and Ronette. Cooper believes that "these letters and the Giant's clues are in some way related to this long-haired man." He reports that the four people on the board have seen this BOB, but only Ronette has seen him in the flesh, at the train car on the night of Laura's murder. He believes that this diagram represents a "psychic link" that will lead them to the killer. Toggling effortlessly between Cooper's numerous supernatural delusions, Truman tries to sound all casual as he asks, "So, um, what did this giant sound like?" Cooper answers sincerely that "he spoke softly, distinctly," and Albert (who we weren't intended to know was in the room until this line) fan-fics his way to a better Twin Peaks tomorrow with the presumption, "And you gave him the beans you were supposed to use to buy a cow?" Heh. Personally, I probably would have gone with a "Ho ho ho, Green Giant" reference there, myself, but I'll give this one to him on the basis that fairy tale cross-referencing is just one of those numerous distinctly Lesli Linka Glatter-esque touches we have come to know and appreciate in all of the unflaggingly original work she has offered up in her lengthy and prolific career. Either way, Albert recaps his newest findings: the cocaine from Slater Fetus's gas tank was also found in Jacques's car and Leo's house (Albert: "You get the picture?" Cooper: "Even got the frame."), a ruse that Albert believes to be "the handiwork of Leo Johnson, currently appearing at Calhoun Memorial Hospital as Mr. Potato Head." The boots from underneath Leo's floorboards had never been worn, the "B" from Ronette's finger had been cut out of Flesh World (surprise!), and the picture of BOB has not turned up in any government database from NASA to DEA. Albert stands to leave and turns the conversation to lighter leisure-time subjects, all of which sound remarkably like the business issues he has just finished discussing. He thinks it would be interesting for Cooper to know that he was shot with a "Walther PBK. That's James Bond's gun, did you know that?" He did not know that. Albert recovered some fibers from outside of Cooper's room, and he calls his need to return to the DC lab to examine the fibers his "ticket out of Trolleyville." In the meantime, he suggests to Truman, "you might practice walking without dragging your knuckles on the floor." Truman advances on Albert and grabs his collar, telling him (and not for the first, twelfth, or ten billionth time) that he'll take Albert down again if he feels he has to. Albert grabs at Truman's own collar and delivers a long and character-defining speech so filled with surprising developments that I almost can't believe it avoids referencing anyone in Twin Peaks acting as either a snake or a rat. And, well, here it is:
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a nay-sayer and hatchet man in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I will gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King [indicated by the manifold, historically documented instances in which Gandhi and/or King would tour a land far from their own and demand sarcastically that the people indigenous to said land, and I quote, "Return to your porch rockers and resume whittling." That's the stuff they leave off the History AP. Why demonize your heroes when it's just not necessary for the national culture, after all]. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely aggression, revenge, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. I love you, Sheriff Truman." He puts on his sunglasses and leaves, apparently forgetful of the fact that he deemed Albert as nothing more than a "hulking boob" just a few short days back. Which is exactly what King had planned on calling his oppressors in a snippet edited out of his "I Have a Dream" speech moments before he walked onstage. They don't teach you that in just any school. Just here at MBTVU, Dayton campus. Oh, and Jefferson owned slaves. Who's moving to Canada with me?
Near the entrance to the station, Slater Fetus dreams his "mama" and/or his "dada" would for once come to his rescue during a time of need such as this one. Cooper tells James he's not going to be charged, adding, "I don't want to see you down here again." Hey, why haven't I just tried the direct approach? Let's just film the entire remainder of the series here, shall we? Because really, the problem with James wasn't the decision to let him ditch town and experience his own subplot life outside of the Twin Peaks. The mistake was in wasting valuable electricity and manpower in dispatching a camera crew to actually follow him and get some of those actions down on video. And that's where it started to go wrong for James. That's where it started to go wrong for us all.
But he's gone now, and we're not going with him for once. Cooper heads over to Lucy's desk and asks how she's doing. She is counting excitedly up from the number seventy-four, and Hawk approaches to ask what she's up to: "Agent Cooper asked me to find as many words as I could with the letters B,T, and R." Hawk takes the sheet and offers assistance, but just then the front door of the station opens and in walks a new character sporting an overcoat, a sports jacket over a flannel-patterned shirt, and -- that's right, America, now THAT'S continental -- an ascot. Ten years of eye-rolling turgid plot dumbness later, I am now magically imbued with the foresight required to formulate the belief that I hate him instantly. Loungy, xylophonic music kicks up as Ascot straightens his moussed hair in the reflection of, what, the "No Smoking" sign? I don't think that's a mirror it's hanging on, just a pane of glass. The only redeeming aspect of the plotline about to plunge us deeper into the morass of character undevelopment emerges when Ascot turns to Lucy and bids her hello in an effete British accent, and she drawls sardonically, "Hello, Dick." Heh. His name's "Dick," and it's funny because they did that on purpose. Oh, and because I'm five. Lucy notes that her "lunch date is here," and Hawk reacts protectively that THIS is the guy that made Andy call into work sick today. Her date? He wants to go out with her? And not, say, oh, I don't know…have sex with a man? And so The Gayest Straight Man Since Barry Manilow saunters (Sashays? Chantés?) over to Lucy's desk and comments, "Lucy, I like men!" Or something else that infuriates Hawk, who spits the word "prohibited" for inclusion on Lucy's list and breaks Liberace's cigarette right out of the holder Dick carries, throwing them both on the floor. Burn. No smoking, indeed. Dick attempts to introduce himself cordially to Hawk, letting him and the rest of us know that he is "Richard Tremaine, Horne's Department Store. Designer Menswear." Hawk blows him off big time, spewing the word "robot" (you know, for the list) and walking away. Dick: "Did I do something to anger him? Not that Native people don't have enough reason to be angry, per se." Hey, look. Another fabulous rethinking of politically enlightened concepts, I see. It's nice to see that more than one visitor to the Twin Peaks sheriff's station would choose to walk so bravely in the shadow of Gandhi and King we've seen her already thus far today. They leave for lunch. He suggests they "go Dutch." Shut up, Dick. Hee. I am so twelve.
Cooper, Truman, and Hawk discuss the height of the ceilings in the Great Northern in an effort to gather the height of the giant as they walk down a hallway inside of the station. Out of seeming nowhere, Leland "Forget Your Troubles, Come On, Get Criminally Freaking Insane" Palmer approaches the men, BOB drawing in hand, and informs them, "I know this man." He tells them that, while growing up, his family had a house at Pearl Lakes, and this man lived door, in a white house to a vacant lot. His last name was "Robertson." Cooper makes the connection with the "R,T, B" and sends Hawk up to Pearl Lakes to gather some more evidence. They thank Leland and take off, but before they are out of earshot, Leland tells them that he remembers one more thing about this mysterious Mr. Robertson: "He used to flick matches at me." At which point Leland takes a pack of matches out of his pocket and lights one. He throws one toward an ashtray some ten feet from where he's standing, adding, "He used to say…" and I half-expect Leland to tell us that BOB threw matches at him to repeated shouts of, for some reason, "Dance, bitch! Dance!" That's not what he said. At all. He did say, "You want to play with fire, little boy?" Cooper picks the match out of the ashtray to find it still lit. He looks briefly into the flame, adopts a look of determined closure that sends the predictable reek of an impending station break right into the air, orates, "That's our man," and blows out the flame with one of those patented Lesli Linka Glatter-ian flourishes that revolutionized the television directing medium as we know it today.
Dick (again, heh) and Lucy sit at the counter at the Double R, Lucy looking monumentally bored while Dick rambles about life as a gay man in a part of the country that places such a high value on manhood and macho values. Or something else. Maybe he's talking about something else. His head is so buried behind the copy of Out that he's brought with him on his -- ahem -- date that it's difficult to hear what he's blowharding on about at all. Lucy, finally, asks why Dick hasn't found time to call at any point in the six weeks since their last date. He waffles that he lost her phone number, setting up this scene's one truly great pearl in the form of "I work for the Sheriff. You could have dialed 911." He apologizes again and laughs, lighting a cigarette and excusing his absence by telling her, "I've been so busy, honestly. I hardly have time to feed my cat!" Single man, fashion industry, lives alone with a cat. My gaydar hasn't felt so at odds with a depiction of heterosexual dating since the early courtship between comically mismatched Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Pullman in Mr. Wrong. Lucy is upset because they went out "every Thursday night for three months," and, as she tells him, "You said you were gonna take me to dinner at the Space Needle in Seattle." He promised a trip to an obscene phallic symbol and then backed away in the final moments for fear of the inevitable, identity-challenging confrontation. You don't say. The only thing special they ever did, she adds, "was drink two bottles of wine and end up on a display bed at Horne's Home Furnishings." Everyone turns around. He apologizes again, telling her he can make it up to her by buying a dress for her at the department store with his discount. She yells something about making it "a maternity dress," telling him that she's pregnant. He looks on ambivalently and speaks the word detachedly, doubtlessly thinking, "Strange that all the times I've visited that bed in the department store, it's never quite worked out like this before." Mr. Wrong, indeed.
So that would make Lucy's fetus somewhere in the area of six weeks into its first trimester, then. Well, perhaps that unborn little thing would have plenty to discuss with another presence of a similar age, sitting in a booth and talking to Maddy. And that's right, careful listener, that song you're hearing as the incidental music is none other than the instrumental guitar strains of that Hurley and the Hurlettes (the dual presence of the word "hurl" is, as I've mentioned, no accident) classic, "Just You." It lives. Slater Fetus asks Maddy if Donna seems different, actually asking, "Doesn't her smoking and stuff bother you?" And just when it couldn't get any more "One To Grow On" (and finally I can use that reference placed in the time frame that begat it), he looks all downcast and adds, "She came to visit when I was jail. And, I don't know, well, she acted like she wanted to do it with me through the bars." Um? Do it? BWAH HA HA HA HA! I can't even comment on it. "Do it." Is this The Newlywed Game? Did she want to make a whole lotta whoopee with you, too? Jesus, just when you thought it couldn't get any gayer. Anyway, James laments, "Sometimes I think I should just get on my bike and go." Yes yes YES! Now there's an idea I feel like I can get behind. Too bad it's 1991 and MapQuest doesn't exist yet so I can't print out a detailed map to my ideal destination for you, the town of The Fuck Out Of Here, population YOU YOU YOU. Can AAA do that? I'll call. You say the word. But for the last time, don't take the camera crew with you. Maddy tells him that running away won't solve anything (oh, how I beg to differ), and she takes his hand in hers (Is this okay to do in public? Wouldn't it be considered "petting?") just as Donna walks in. Hand-holding ends. Donna takes no time in getting around to telling the two booth-dwellers that the person she's just met is "bright, charming, intelligent. Completely unlike anybody I know." Ew. And unlike "he" was, I must say. Then she says something mean about James and Maddy holding hands and storms out. What was that about getting on your motorcycle and never coming back? I hear that The Fuck Out Of Here has really beautiful sunsets, and if you leave now you can be there by nightfall. Or not. Just go.
Poor Audrey. Still trapped in the subplot hell of her One-Eyed Jacks abduction. She's bound and gagged as Emory videotapes her and Blackie stands aside saying really clichéd things about abducting her. Battis becomes worried that Audrey will escape unscathed and tells Blackie that he doesn't want to lose his job over this. Like, say, the writers who took an extremely promising plot thread featuring, like, everyone's favorite cast member and made it as drawn-out as…damn, I already used up the Mr. Wrong reference for this week, didn't I? Anyway, this is becoming tiresome.
And back at the sheriff's station, the one-armed man is engaged in a shoe-selling sequence with Truman that appears to have been going on for some time. During this process, Mike (he has, like, sixty names, doesn't he? Or is "Mike" his middle name? "Mr. Gerard" sounds a little formal, "The One-Armed Man" a little reductive, like someone calling me "The Two-Armed Man" all the time, which I imagine would be quite annoying after a spell) spots the "Have You Seen This Man" poster and begins the process of freaking out hardcore. He tells Truman that he takes medication for a disorienting condition, and then asks where the bathroom is. Meanwhile, Shelley and Cooper are in a different office, and Truman walks in just in time to hear Shelley saying that she won't testify against her husband. She remains recalcitrant, and Cooper is finally forced to change his approach, telling her that one can only hope Leo will wake up one day and be the good old husband she can't bring herself to say anything bad about. He practically tosses her out of the office, much to her sudden fear and surprise. But we see no more, as we are suddenly in the bathroom stall with Mike Gerard The One-Armed Man, who seems to be attempting to administer a shot and is breathing in a labored fashion (ew, please don't puke) and sweating quite profusely (ew, he's, like, totally gonna puke). He then emerges into the bathroom and speaks sinister words in a suddenly sinister voice, "BOB, I know you're here. I'm after you now." It's a little evil, in a vaguely "MWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA" kind of way. Just kidding. It's not really that scary.
Inside of the Great Northern, Cooper steps off an elevator and past the Mysterious Asian Man who called Josie (who, in the totality of her absence, has become a personal favorite character of mine in the ever-increasing "I Say Go, You Say How Far" category) from a pay phone a few weeks back. Cooper finds Ben Horne in the lobby and tells him that Audrey called last night from an as-yet-undetermined location. Ben plays nice for the requisite nine seconds before turning the conversation to his suspicions regarding this particular FBI investigation: "Do I detect a note of something outside the scope of professional concern?" Cooper calls his relationship with Audrey one of "an acquaintance," and Ben relishes that description in telling Cooper that men fall under Audrey's spell whether they choose to or not. Cut to, predictably, interior Jacks again, where a sleeping Audrey is awakened by a man -- God, who's THAT Canuck William Shatner doppelganger in the two-toned sports jacket and the string tie? "My name is Jean." Oh. Thanks. This "Jean" tells Audrey several indistinguishable things. Cut to Blackie and Emory watching the surveillance video recorded the night of the first-season finale, in which Cooper sits at the blackjack table wearing his tuxedo. Emory recognizes Cooper as the FBI agent from, get this, all the way back at the town meeting the day after Laura died. Nice recall. Even though it was, like, five days ago. Jean enters and introduces himself to Emory. Jean's last name is Renault. Man, were their parents Mormon? Just when this show offs one boring ambiguously evil Canadian, another one's head springs up even more generically in its place. Jean quickly offers to become involved for a price. All I understand is, "My cut is thirty percent." Other than that, I have no idea what he's talking about. I think Blackie wants ransom money for Audrey and Jean wants to settle a personal vendetta with Cooper for the whole thing with him, y'know, killing his brother. God, the French are a testy lot. Especially when they're really Canadian.
Truman's office. Cooper walks in to find that Josie called Pete, and that she'll be back in Twin Peaks the following afternoon. Boo! Hiss! Feh! See, just when I had gone and said something nice. Never again, I tell you. Stupid little boy. Truman asks if he can talk to Josie alone before they bring her in for questioning, and Cooper assents as Hawk enters to confirm that there is, in fact, a vacant lot to the Palmer house on Pearl Lakes. They are also expecting further information to come to light "tomorrow." Josie tomorrow. Pearl Lakes tomorrow. Say, filler scene, why don't you just link us right on over to tomorrow's episode if you're so convinced it will be rife with entertainment of the non-stasis variety. Or we can just keep watching this scene right here. Truman asks Hawk if he's seen Mr. Gerard, and Cooper expresses surprise that the One-Armed Man visited the station and no one let him know. "Remember," Cooper asks, not nearly as incredulously as he should, "in my dream, the One-Armed Man knew BOB." From the wild gaze Harry throws in every direction but "focused," he did not remember any such thing, it seems. Cooper runs into the bathroom when Harry tells him that Gerard had gotten dizzy and went to take some medication, and outside of the stall Cooper picks up a hypodermic needle and repeats, "Without chemicals, he points." He then charts their move: "Harry, we've got to find the One-Armed Man."
Back at Chicago Hopeless, everyone remains dour and critically, terribly ill. We join Doc Hayward in the process of trimming the increasingly lean series budget by ineptly killing two out of every three patients who dare to enter for any reason, any reason at all. He watches as an orderly restrains a seemingly placid Nadine with leather restraints chained -- like, with real metal -- to the metal bed. Doc Hayward tells Ed (Hurley, not Grimley. Bet you never thought you'd be put in a position where you'd run the risk of getting those two confused) that Nadine is "pumping out more adrenaline than a wildcat." The good doctor proposes that Ed try singing to her as a mode of relaxing her. Ed asks the doctor to leave, and when the two are alone, the über-sincere Ed breaks into a heartfelt rendition of "On Top of Old Smokey," soon to be interrupted by Nadine squeezing her husband's hand so hard that he becomes immobilized. She breaks through the metal restraints and sits straight up in bed, eyes (well, eye, at least) closed, bouncing up and down and clapping her hands hard. She's chanting, or something, and the first words we can make out grow increasingly in volume throughout: "…you're a jack and I'm a jack and steeplejacks are we. And when we climb up to the top, the cry is victory! V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!" Jazz hands. Spirit fingers. Spiraling creative direction. Everywhere. She opens her eyes and spots Ed: "Did you come by to pick me up?" He nods, terrified. She continues: "Doc Hayward says tonsillitis or no tonsillitis, I can go to cheerleading tryouts." Ed continues the gaze. And so she obliges, nailing it home: "You know what they say…you're only eighteen once!" In that case, Nadine: Gimme an "eh?"
Elsewhere at Chicago Hopeless, Dr. "My Abiding Interests Now Lie to the South…If You Know What I Mean" Jacoby has transformed his hospital room into a tropical paradise of sorts with the help of island music, candles, tons of pastel, and a "wife" named "Eolani" who we've never seen before because she lives in the mail-order bride catalog he has hastily stuffed between his mattress and his box spring upon hearing the impending pitter-patter of law-enforcing feet. Er, I mean, "at their house in Hanalei." Cooper and Truman enter. Cooper asks, "Are you ready to be hypnotized?" and we learn quickly that Jacoby has submitted to this preferred method of jogging the bad doctor's memory concerning the night of Jacques Renault's murder. Jacoby gives Cooper a piece of paper with a reading of the usual method he uses to "go under." Island music plays, replete with waves crashing and gulls, um, gulling. Truman is employed to hold a rock. Cooper begins to read: "You are standing on a smooth green carpet of grass. The ball is fifteen feet from the hole." Golf. Truman starts to nod off, and Cooper has to bring him back with a stern bark of his name. Finally, Jacoby is under and the questioning begins. Black-and-white flashbacks accompany Jacoby's reminiscences of the night of Jacques' murder. "The sound of tape ripping wakes me up. I see a pillow going over his face. He's making a sound." Then Jacques dies. Jacoby sees the murderer. And it is…? What a perfect time this would be, then, to cut to an under-cover-of-darkest-night shot of moodily blowing trees. And so we do. Thanks again, Lesli Linka Glatter. Thanks a freakin' lot.
I'm sorry, is this Our Town? Moody trees dissolve to an owl (not what it seems) which cuts to Donna kneeling at Laura's grave and talking, talking, talking. She drops off Grimley's flower, one I'm just so sure he would give to Pat Sajak if he ever came over to the shut-in's house in the middle of the woods, and wouldn't that just be so wonderful I must say, and chats it up. And considering the screen time she and James have shared over the course of the show thus far, it seems only right that Donna should be comfortable acting opposite a big ol' slab of stone. Right. And thus spake Skeletor: "Sorry I haven't been out to see you since the funeral, but things have been pretty strange. So were you sleeping with this guy Harold or what? Seems pretty nice. Kind of an oddball. Although I guess anyone can start to seem like that if you look close enough." Donna continues, explaining how things have progressed between her and James, and falls into a rant about how mad she is at Laura for dying. "As much as I love you, Laura, most of the time we were trying to solve your problems. And you know what? We still are. Not mine or James's or Maddy's. Yours. You're dead, Laura, but your problems keep hanging around. It's almost like they didn't bury you deep enough!" Tears and more tears.
Also knee-deep in his own round of "I didn't ask to be unborn" pathos, James runs into the Palmer house, the very same house in which Donna has never resided, looking for Donna. Whatever. He finds Maddy and tells her that his mom showed up all wasted (and we know how drinking is so bad for the…oh, never mind). That's right, kids. The incidental music you're hearing right now is…oh, never mind. James says, "Hold me," because he's tough and sensitive. She does, just as Donna walks right in on it. She runs out, and James gives chase, knocking a lamp off of a desk because the Palmers have nothing better to do than spend their days home-furnishings shopping. Maybe that's where Sarah has been for the last six weeks. Back in the house, Maddy cries to Leland (the twitchy shoulder to cry on du jour), "I'm not Laura." Leland comforts her that they all feel the same way about wanting life to go back to being like what it was before she died: "If life could only be like those summers up at Pearl Lakes." Cut to Truman and Cooper, standing at the door to the living room. Truman: "You're under arrest for the murder of Jacques Renault." Nice.
Knock, knock, knock, I must say. A crying Donna shows up at Harold Smith's house (how'd she know he'd be…oh, never mind) and tells him she had nowhere else to go. She's sad about James. Harold is comforting but, frankly, he's just a little too mullet-y for her to feel completely comfortable around. He wraps her in a blanket and takes leave of the room to get her "something to drink." And again she takes this opportunity to liberally tour the room for things to pilfer and steal and learn and steal, and as Sad Strings kicks up as per usual, she notices a small red book with the lock unlatched. She opens the front cover to read the handwriting that greatly approximates a production assistant attempting to imitate the girlish script of a seventeen-year-old girl: "This is the diary of Laura Palmer." And with a typical adept sleight of hand, Lesli Linka Glatter's much-heralded camera work closes in, comes to rest, and fades to black.